Your FTFE?

How many days in a year do you fish? In other words: what's your FTFE (Full Time Fishing Equivalent)?

I know guys at our fly fishing club who fish almost every couple of days as well as the whole weekend. Don't ask me how he gets away with his wife & family! That must be at least 100-150 FTFE's a year? I think in the past 10 years my fishing days has decreased to about 20-25 FTFE's a year. This is made up of usually 2-3 long weekend trips during spring / fall and a week trip during the summer. Every other two years or so I'll treat myself with a two weeks trip to the USA /Canada. Such a year will be 30 FTFE.

Funny thing is I prefer to fish 3-4 days straight every once in a while rather than running around a full week chasing fish. After 3-4 days, my hunger to fish is satisfied and start feeling overfed. That's like going to a nice dinner with a full stomach. I'd rather wait for my 'fish hunger' after a fish-less period. One might say I prefer quality time rather than quantity days. By the way, looking at such nice pictures as the one on top really makes me hungry any day!

So, what is YOUR FTFE?

Silk lines

After reading many ravings about fishing a bamboo fly rod with a silk line, I decided to get one. These days silk lines are rarely if ever used on modern graphite rods. Surprisingly there are still a few manufacturers of silk lines. The best known is Phoenix, followed by Thebault. Terenzio is another Italian manufacturer of silk lines. Terenzio also makes artificial 'silk' lines which means they need a lot less maintenance. Very interesting. There are also a few Japanese manufacturers, Yano being the best known.

I always thought silk fly lines were for the sentimental old fools who refuse to admit it's the space age rather than the Victorian period. One of the most interesting thing about fishing with silk lines is that since the silk is heavier than PVC, the silk lines are much thinner than PVC lines. So, silk lines cuts into the wind like a warm knife through butter. Quite an eye opener... Here's a nice article on how silk lines does has its advantages over modern PVC lines. Silk lines are more expensive than PVC lines. In fact I had to scratch my head before taking the plunge, but if taken well care of silk lines will last for lifetime. More info on silk lines can be found here.

I bought the Phoenix line because I heard it is fishable right out of the box, while other lines needed to be 'broken in' (the stiffness of the woven structure will soften over use). I think they mean that the line is very stiff and needed to be softened using the red Mucilin and cast some time before heading for the trouts. By the way, I needed a #4 line but bought a DT5 as people who fished with a DT4 from Phoenix said that it felt like a #3.5 rather than a #4. I haven't fished my Phoenix line yet. I'll keep it in the box until my Jennings rod arrives.


The myth of the DT line
The myth that one might cast more delicately with a DT line than with a WF line is just rubbish. The Double Taper is an heritage from the silk line as one can turn over the line to fish the fresh part when the front part is water logged and won't float anymore (usually after 3-4 hours). This way you can fish all day long. Both modern DT and WF lines (we are talking about models available in both DT and WF) have the same taper in the first 9 meters/30 feet. So, people telling you that a DT fishes more delicately better need to check their casting capabilities...

Maintenance of silk lines
Silk lines are always intermediate lines, meaning they will slowly sink when untreated. After treating the line with Mucilin it will float. The maintenance that comes with silk lines seems to be much exaggerated by most. I think it's a bit more work than a PVC line, but since I also clean & treat them with line dressing every evening after fishing I guess that's not much more work. Most important thing to do when fishing silk lines is that you need to DRY them completely in large loose coils after fishing. If not taken care of, silk lines can get tacky (sticky). Storing the line in the winter you'll need to keep it DRY and COOL and wrapped around in large coils. Using some of those moist wicking bags often found in medicine bottles is probably a good idea.


Update 2018:
Red Mucilin has been traditionally the recommended line treatment for silk lines. Recently a new line dressing called the Otter Butter was introduced by an online shop in the USA. Many fishermen prefer Otter Butter over Mucilin these days as the finish on the line feels less tacky and keeps the silk line float longer.

Sage's new Z-Axis (or what ever...)

Sage is replacing their XP rod series with a new series called Z-Axis. Since Orvis called their newest rods the Zero Gravity (replaced by Helios, dec 2009), the letter 'Z' seems to be the buzz-word. 

 Back to the Z-Axis. Talk about an UGLY color! It looks like an algae green and if the other recent rod series like the Fli and TXL are an example how Sage want their blanks to look like, it will also be an algae 'solid' green! Man, those guys at Sage need to re-hire the make-up artist they fired after the SP series! Those days the rods looked handsome: translucent racing green blanks with nice cosmetics like the swelled butt.

The new rod sounds like a new rocket the Nasa will launch next week to a near by galaxy: Generation 5 Technology, Utilize Aligned Fiber Technology, Proprietary Resin and Modulus Positioning System? One needs an engineering degree to understand what this means. I hope it's not another even faster rod like the Sage TCR. Winston (BIIx series) and Scott (G2 series) seems to make a small U-turn with their newest rod series incorporating slightly softer actioned rods. The ever faster rods of the last couple of years have turned casting into an olympic sport. Sure they cast a zillion miles, but are these rods fun to play a nice fish too?

Hmm... all's well, we'll report after casting a few of these new rods the coming months.

Update 20 dec 2021

After more than 15 years the Z-Axis 490 came home. My Romanian friend & rod builder George Minculete got one returned unused. I always thought it was one of the nicest Sage build by George. He shortened the grip to my preference length (6 inch), new rod bag and tube. A very brief cast with the rod and it feels a bit faster than I had in my memories. The Z-Axis was positioned by Sage as a fast action rod after all. It's probably a killer rod for fishing with a slightly heavier #4 line like the SA MPX.

Update 11 nov 2006

I held the Z-Axis 490 today in my hands. The color was much darker green than the picture here. Pretty much like the dark green of the XP, maybe a tad lighter. From the 'wiggle test' I didn't feel much difference from the XP series. The tip looked a bit more flexible. I could have taken the rod outside for a cast, but I didn't because I wanted to cast more sizes rather than the only 490 Z-Axis. 

Update 6 jan 2007

I've cast the 490 Z-Axis today. What can I say? This rod casts as smooth as a rod can be, both close and far. The rod doesn't feel stiff like the XP at all. Incredibly light and I just loved how the rod managed to lay out the line without a hick up. It's only a 4 weight, so LOOONG casts aren't really the trademark of these delicate rods, but I had no problem casting tight loops up to around 55 foot. Beyond that the rod started to collapse a bit.

The cosmetics I'm still not impressed. In fact I think it looks very dull. The color of the blank looks cheap, the printing of the word 'Z-Axis' is in my view too big making it look cheap and the hardware used are just basic (Struble?). I think Sage should have dressed up their top rod series.

Czech Republic in July

During the third week of July I went for a weeks fishing in the Czech Republic. To be more precise the Liberec Region, which is about 100 km north of Prague. Our destiny was Navarov, near the town of Zelezny Brod. Although it sounds a lot further, it's only a 9 hour drive. About the same distance to the Weisse Traun in Southern Germany. The pension Rusalka where we stayed is run by a Dutch(!) couple Bart & Borrie.

The summary of fishing in mid July is: hot and low waters. The hot and humid conditions made fishing during the day quite a tiring activity. The heat of the summer caused the main river, the Jizera, to run very low. In fact the fishing in the Jizera came to a grinding stop. We had to look for our fishing in the tributary, the Kamenice. The lower stretches of the Kamenice is a typical hillside stream with small riffles after every other bend. The upper stretches are more challenging turning the stream into a pocket water stream. The surrounding trees made the fishing a bit more bearable as well as keeping the water temperatures a lot cooler than the Jizera.

The fishing consisted of mainly browns and graylings with the occasional rainbow and even a brookie. The size of the fish were pretty small, averaging 8-10 inches with the 12-13 inch range for the 'big boss' hiding in a nice pool. We did see bigger fish, probably grayling, in the really deep and fast moving pools but typically they were not interested in our offerings.

Fishing almost 6 consecutive days on the Kemenice really tested our eagerness to fish, at least it did for me. After 3-4 days I found it becoming a bit repetitive. Good thing the company was great as well as the surroundings. The prices in the Czech Republic are dead cheap compared to other parts of Europe (but for how long?). Not surprisingly we ran into a lot of fellow dutch people taking a vacation in the Czech Republic.

For the best fishing with lots of nice sized graylings (my friends Jan and Martin were here last fall when the conditions were considerably better), the later part of the summer or fall (September) should be considered. July is just too hot causing the rivers run too low. However, the fishing pressure is low compared to the more common destinations as well as the overall pricing. That might make it a nice destination for people looking for solitude as well as on a tight budget.

Jan & Martin:
Thanks for a very nice week! We need to do this more often!

A word on the equipment used:
I used a 7.6ft #3 rod (Orvis Tippet) using a bead head with a small pheasant tail or Prince dropper. The fish here seems to be reluctant to look up for a dry fly. My buddy Martin who prefers to fish with dries had no luck pursuing the fish to sip his dries.